


The Children

by tomatopudding



Series: Redux [6]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Remix, Het and Slash, Multi, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Children of Earth would be different in my ‘verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Children

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: A week after "Enter Time Agent" (June 2010)  
> A/N: Instead of re-writing the whole series, which would just be annoying, I will just be showing what would have been different for each of the days.

SECTION 5

DAY 1

‘I don’t see why we would need a second medic,’ Owen Harper grumbled as he watched the video screen. Gwen was talking to that Indian guy, Patanjib or Patty Cake or whatever.

From beside him, Toshiko Sato chuckled, continuing to click away at her keyboard. She was doing a thorough background check on the doctor Gwen was currently conversing with.

‘Think about it this way,’ she said, ‘If we get another medic, then you can delegate the messy autopsies and vault clean-ups to them. Let them stay here while you go on more missions.’

Owen was silent for a moment before he grinned, ‘That’s genius! I get to have an underling!’

He placed a quick kiss on Tosh’s cheek. Even after over a month of dating, the smallest bit of affection from Owen made Tosh blush, which she did profusely now. Humming happily, and disastrously off key, Owen almost skipped away to his small medical area where the hitchhiker Jack and Ianto had picked up was waiting for him.

‘What’s he so happy about?’ Ianto Jones asked, placing a mug of coffee at Tosh’s station, ‘When Owen is cheerful, it usually means someone is going to get hurt.’

‘I kind of feel sorry for this Rupesh guy,’ Toshiko said, sipping the coffee, ‘I just told Owen about the joys of being someone’s superior.’

Ianto groaned, ‘Really, Tosh? We want this guy to stay for more than a day if he gets hired.’

Tosh shrugged and hid a grin in her coffee mug. Since her near-death experience, Tosh had begun to loosen up some, allowing her playful side to come through. It also probably had something to do with the attention she now got from Owen, whom she had always fancied massively.

The proximity alarm sounded as the cog door rolled open and Gwen re-entered the Hub. She walked over to Tosh and Ianto, smiling lightly.

‘I think he’s legit,’ she told them.

‘Good,’ said Jack, who had appeared at the entrance to his office, ‘I’ll go talk to him at the hospital.’

‘Bring me back an underling!’ Owen called up from autopsy as the cog door rolled shut again.

________________

The alarms were blaring, lights flashing, lockdown initiated, but all Ianto could do was stand there and stare into Jack’s eyes. Gwen and Tosh were already topside and Owen was on the invisible lift, shouting Ianto’s name, trying to grab his hand, arms, anything.

‘Go,’ Jack murmured gruffly, ‘I’ll be fine. I always am.’

‘Jack.’

The captain left no room for argument, pulling Ianto into a fierce kiss that felt too much like a goodbye.

‘I love you, Ianto Jones,’ Jack whispered into the Welshman’s ear before pushing him back onto the lift and into Owen’s waiting arms.

‘Jack!’ Ianto’s voice was ragged and broken as he called down from the steadily rising lift, only Owen’s grip keeping him from jumping, ‘Jack! I love you, Jack, please!’

Just barely had the lift clicked into place when the ground rumbled and Ianto’s whole world exploded around him.

DAY 2

There was something on Ianto’s back, he could feel the weight of it pressing him into the ground. The thing was perpendicular to him, draped over the small of his back and extending who knew how far in each direction. A small, narrow piece ran all the way from his back to the top of his head. When Ianto opened his eyes, he saw that a series of smaller pieces hung in his vision. He blinked a few times allowing his eyes to clear. Oh. It was a hand. Ianto shifted his gaze backwards, following the fingers to an arm to a torso and finally to a head. Owen. Owen was laying on top of him, seemingly unconscious. Ianto shifted slightly and Owen let out a groan, his eyes fluttering open.

‘Owen,’ Ianto hissed, ‘Get off. You may be dead, but you’re also a dead weight.’

Owen did his best to rise, managing to get his weight off of Ianto before collapsing back to the ground. Ianto crawled to his knees and then to his feet, holding a hand out to Owen. The undead medic grabbed the offered hand and struggled to his feet. His left leg collapsed underneath him.

‘Think I cracked my tibia,’ Owen ground out. He didn’t physically feel pain, but the thought of how it would have felt before his death was enough to make his brain believe that it hurt.

Ianto muttered a curse in Welsh and hauled the medic up. Owen used Ianto like a crutch and they hobbled away at much as possible. Once they were out of the wreckage, Ianto helped drag Owen to a nearby low roof. As Ianto watched what went on down below, Owen slid off his button down, leaving him in only a plain white t-shirt. The button down he tore into one long strip and began to wrap around the lower part of his left leg. There was no way of knowing exactly how much damage had been done until he could get some sort of medical equipment, but regardless of what had happened, it would be this way for a long time. Because Owen’s body was no longer alive, it couldn’t heal injury. This was the reason why he wore gloves. One hand had a deep scalpel wound that would never heal and a perpetually broken pinky wrapped together with his ring finger. Now, there was just one more injury that he would have for the rest of his living death.

Once the shirt was wrapped, Owen grabbed the safety pin Ianto offered - why he had it, Owen would never know - and pinned the makeshift bandage shut.

‘This’ll have to do,’ he grunted as he rose. He could put more weight on the leg, but he wouldn’t be running anywhere any time soon.

Ianto finished writing the plate number on his hand and shifted his attention to Owen, ‘Ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

________________

Gwen found Tosh in the fake ambulance. She was unconscious, but other than a few bad scrapes not really worse for wear. It was the gunshot that awoke her and her eyes snapped open, focusing on Gwen.

‘What happened?’ she asked blearily.

‘The Hub is gone,’ Gwen told her sadly, ‘A big hole in the ground. Hopefully some of the morgue and archives survived.’

‘I’m sure they did,’ Tosh said, sitting up gingerly, ‘The archives and the vaults are the most secure places in the entire Hub. As for the morgue, well, I’m not too sure about the that. Where are the others?’

‘The bomb was inside Jack’s stomach,’ Gwen said, swallowing, ‘but he’ll be alright. He always is.’

‘What about Owen?’ Tosh asked, slightly hysterical, ‘Ianto?’

Gwen shook her head, ‘No idea. Wherever they are, luv, I’m sure they will be able to take care of themselves. Now come on, we’re going to get Rhys.’

_________________

When Ianto and Owen caught up with Gwen, the first thing the medic did was pull Tosh into a bone-crushing bear hug and she sobbed into his shoulder. He held her close as Ianto and Gwen planned, Rhys looking on with a glint of something in his eyes. When Rhys and Owen locked eyes for the first time, the medic gave him a small nod, a thank you for helping keep Tosh safe. Rhys smiled slightly and nodded back, confirming a very sudden and deep bond of friendship between them. 

Ianto was fierce and determined as they went to go rescue Jack.

_________________

Owen wasn’t up to doing a lot of walking at the moment, so he stayed in the car, Tosh sitting beside him with her head on his shoulder, as Jack and Ianto had their reunion. From his vantage point, he could only see Jack’s expressions as they ran the gamut from worried to relieved to pure unadulterated love. 

There wasn’t exactly room for everyone in the car. Rhys drove with Gwen in the passenger seat. On the back bench, Owen and Jack sat on the outsides, a protective set of parentheses for the two adults sitting in the middle. Even with Tosh and Ianto half-way on their respective partners’ laps, it was a tight fit. Although, Owen decided, pulling Tosh closer to him and feeling Jack fingers resting fatherly and protective on the back of his neck and Ianto’s foot pressed against his, he didn’t really mind. 

DAY 3

DAY 4

They were making plans. 

‘Of course, I’ll go in,’ Jack said when Ianto protested, ‘I’m the face of Torchwood! What would it look like of the boss didn’t do the confrontation?’

‘Then I’m going with you,’ Ianto told him decisively.

‘Fine.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Owen put in, drawing the surprised stares of everyone, ‘This thing, this 456, lives in poisonous gas, yeah? If you go in and shot up the tank, then these gasses will be released. I’m dead already. I don’t breath, so it won’t effect me.’

The others just stared at him.

‘What?’

‘That is,’ Gwen paused, ‘Supremely intelligent of you, Owen.’

Owen rolled his eyes at her, ‘Yeah, I do that sometimes.’

‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,’ Jack murmured, looked guiltily at Ianto, ‘I was going to let you walk directly into danger.’

Ianto had a look on his face that showed he hadn’t thought of it either. He locked eyes briefly with Jack and turned to Owen.

‘At risk of acting like Jack,’ Ianto began, ‘I have to do this. Doctor Owen Harper, I bloody love you.’

With that, Ianto grabbed Owen and placed a hard kiss on the medic’s cold lips, Jack whooping in the background as the others laughed.

‘Yeah yeah,’ Owen said, pushing Ianto away with a grin, ‘Don’t make it a habit.’

That small bit of levity done with, the team of Torchwood Three returned to their planning.

________________

If Owen’s heart was still working, it would have stopped the moment the 456 announced that it had released a deadly gas into Thames House. Any urge he may have gotten to gloat about that fact that he was right to keep Ianto from entering the building with Jack was squashed by the fact that the 456 had just condemned everyone in the building to death. As Jack died in his arms, Owen could do nothing but stare at the tank where the 456 were housed, an expression of pure disgust and horror on his face.

________________

Jack was extremely subdued after he came back to life, the deaths of those at Thames House obviously weighing heavily on his mind. He had absently thanked Owen for saving Ianto’s life, but was quiet for the whole trip back to the Hub 2. Once there, his expression turned into the same fierce look Ianto had worn when they went to rescue the immortal and everyone knew that they were going to avenge the deaths of those helpless souls at Thames House.

DAY 5

Toshiko typed furiously at her make-shift station at the Hub 2. There had to be some other way of sending the signal back to the 456. Jack was hovering over her shoulder, face pinched and lips pressed tight together. Under normal circumstances, Tosh would have teased Jack about being over-bearing and then shooed him away from her. This, however, was nowhere near being a normal situation. With a small crow of success, Tosh finished the program she had just cobbled together. It simulated what a child’s brain waves would look like. Now, all they needed to do was find something to transmit the signal.

_________________

It was over yet things had only just begun. It had been a week and half since the 456 incident and repairs on the Hub were well underway. It was difficult figuring out who they could have come and repair their top secret base, but Jack had somehow managed to do it.

The Torchwood Three team had been expanded. Lois Habiba had been officially welcomed onto the staff as a thanks for the work she had done for them during the incident. Rhys was also officially a part of the team, but only as back-up. Once Gwen was on the newly instated Torchwood maternity leave, Rhys would be coming in as her temporary replacement. Upon Gwen’s request, Jack had offered a job to her old partner Andy Davidson. The PC had readily accepted and was already gelling in to the group quite nicely. They were still looking for a second medic to add to the team. Once he had time, Owen had discovered that he had, in fact, broken the tibia of his left leg, a break that would never fully heal, even after a small dab of alien technology (courtesy of a strange man in a suit and trainers who had showed up briefly with Martha Jones and received a slap from Jack - an amusing sight indeed). 

Because of this injury, Owen’s movements were restricted, especially when it came to running, which meant that he would only be able to go on field assignments if it was absolutely necessary. He was, however, very much in on the process of picking a new field medic. Martha, their first choice, had politely declined the invitation to join the team, saying that she thought it was time to get Torchwood One up and running again, though the Cardiff branch would remain in the lead.

In the mean time, they were working out of Owen’s large apartment. He didn’t mind donating his home as a temporary base of operations as he spent most nights at Tosh’s cozy flat in any event. Although he didn’t technically sleep, he could enter a sort of half-doze-half-trance that allowed him to curl up with his genius of a girlfriend and relax during the dark hours of the day. 

Tonight, however, a week and a half since the expulsion of the 456, Torchwood Three was not thinking about work. They had all gathered at Jack and Ianto’s flat for dinner. Normally, they would go to Gwen and Rhys’ place, because Rhys was a better chef than the rest of the team put together, but the couple was currently in the process of moving into new flat with room for a nursery, so their old and new homes were mess of cardboard boxes. 

So, they all sit on the floor because Jack and Ianto don’t have a table big enough for everyone, bowls of chili and glasses of wine placed carefully before them - after Ianto threatens to sic Janet on anyone who stained his carpet - talking and laughing, Jack and Ianto constantly touching, Tosh and Owen with their knees pressed together, Gwen practically in Rhys’ lap, Andy and Lois no-so-discretely making eyes at each other. They were family. They don’t even mind when Jack’s wrist strap beeped that Myfanwy had been spotted in Barry and he ran off with Ianto on a pterodactyl hunt.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, nothing was written under Day 3 for a reason.


End file.
